Math Salon

A conversational lounge sharing ideas about mathematics and its history.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Egyptian Hubris?


The Rhind Papyrus is named after the dead white guy who bought it at an Egyptian yard sale in 1858. It might be fairer to name it the "Ahmes Papyrus" after the 1650 B.C. scribe but I doubt that idea will catch on. The Rhind Papyrus claims to be an “Accurate reckoning for inquiring into things, and the knowledge of all things, mysteries...all secrets.” (wikipedia) The document then shows worked out examples of arithmetic problems, a fraction table, pyramid dimension problems, and word problems from hell like "Seven houses contain seven cats. Each cat kills seven mice. Each mouse had eaten seven ears of grain. Each ear of grain would have produced seven hekats of wheat. What is the total of all of these?" Secrets of the universe, indeed. Does math actually provide "knowledge of all things" as the Rhind Papyrus asserts? What exactly does math do? What do you reckon?

Friday, January 4, 2008

Cardinal v Ordinal



No, it's not a baseball rivalry. It's a rivalry of ideas. The cardinal sense of a number addresses the question of "How many?" As in "Three strikes and you're out." The ordinal sense of a number addresses the question of "What order?" As in "You're batting clean-up," that is, being fourth in the batting order. Which sense of number do you think came first? Batter-up!